The long-term objective of this research work is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of protein synthesis initiation in red blood cells. In this research we propose to study the roles of different factors such as peptide chain initiation factors and protein synthesis inhibitors that are involved in the regulation of protein synthesis in red blood cells. We will analyze how these factors change under different physiological conditions and control cellular processes such as aging, anemia and red cell-differentiation. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Gupta, N.K., Chatterjee, B., and Majumdar, A., Protein Synthesis in Rabbit Reticulocytes: Requirement of mRNA for Met-tRNA for Met Binding to 40S Ribosomes, The Journal of Cell Biology, 67, 149a (1975). Majumdar, A., Bose, K.K., Gupta, N.K. and Wahba, A., Specific Binding of Escherichia coli Chain Initiation Factor 2 to f-Met-tRNAfMet, J. Biol. Chem., 251, 137-140 (1976).